You can call him The Quiet Governor, for mum is the word as far as Buta Singh is concerned. He may shoot out debatable orders and write controversial letters, but you just can’t accuse the governor of Bihar of speaking an extra syllable. Which is why, when he calls a press conference at his New Delhi residence, he makes it a point not to say a thing. “I won’t utter a word beyond that I am in Delhi to see ailing relatives,” is all that he’ll say.

Good politicians ? though some believe this to be an oxymoron ? are those who don’t shoot their mouths off. Buta Singh, by that yardstick, is a good politician. But whether or not Sardar Dr Buta Singh ? as the name-plate by his chambers at the Patna secretariat describes him ? is a good governor is the issue at stake.

The former minister has been kicking up a few storms ever since he took over as the governor of the troubled state a little less than a year ago. There was, a Bihar politician admits, considerable jubilation when President’s rule was imposed on the state in March. The Opposition was happy, for President’s rule meant Laloo Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi were out of power. “Just wait and watch,” crowed Lok Janshakti chief and Laloo’s numero uno foe, Ram Vilas Paswan. “Buta will bring development to Bihar,” he said.

There has been considerable development, but possibly not quite what Paswan had in mind. For 71-year-old Buta Singh’s tenure in Bihar has been a headline-a-day kind of a reign. “Buta Singh’s rule is an extension of the Rashtriya Janata Dal government,” says Shambhu Srivastava, spokesperson of the Janata Dal (United). “As far as Laloo is concerned, he is another Rabri Devi.”

The latest development was a Supreme Court ruling declaring the governor’s move to dissolve the Bihar Assembly in May as unconstitutional.

The ruling was seen as a serious embarrassment to the United Progressive Alliance government, which had given the gubernatorial posting to Buta Singh after the man who had been elected eight times to Parliament lost from Jalore in Rajasthan in the 2004 election.

Days after the Supreme Court ruling, the buzz in political corridors is still all about Singh. Will the governor be recalled? Or will he, in a face-saving exercise, merely be sent to a smaller, less controversial state as governor?

Singh, many believe, may live to see another day, for he is widely perceived as a crafty politician. A Congress-watcher says there is nothing much that the party can do to him, for he has managed to keep his flanks well covered. It is said that Singh actually gave his report for the dissolution soon after it became apparent that no party in Bihar was in a position to form a government last March. It is the home ministry which sat on the report, Singh is believed to have pointed out to the high command.

The grapevine has it that he has kept copies of all his correspondence with the Centre. And there are some who think Thursday’s press conference in Delhi was a quiet message to the party high command to underscore the fact that he still has friends in the press. His ties with the media go back to the 1982 Asian Games when Singh was minister for sports.

Singh has a history of being caught in controversy ? and wriggling out of it. When Punjab was in the throes of terrorism, it was said that he had links with every possible group in the state. But when Congress leaders, especially those from Punjab, got the brunt of the state’s ire after the storming of the Golden Temple, Singh succeeded in keeping his own image afloat. He did kar sewa at the temple, humbly cleaning boots to atone for his sins.

He was also one of those accused in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha graft case. And earlier still, Buta Singh was the home minister charged with facilitating the holding of the shilanyas in Ayodhya ? which, some believe, triggered the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. In Bihar, too, this is not the first time that the spotlight has focused on Singh.

The governor’s office hit the headlines when the new chief secretary, G.S. Kang, refused to go along with the ‘excesses’ of what was often described as the Laloo-Buta raj. He made his grievances public, and it was after some private confabulation that the Kang-Singh fracas was amicably resolved.

Singh’s two sons ? Lovely and Sweety ? have also been cause for concern. Wild allegations of corruption have been levelled at those close to Singh, and the Opposition doesn’t mince its words when decrying the rule of the governor. “George Fernandes calls him Jhoota Singh,” says Srivastava. “And the common people call him Loota Singh,” he says.

The media made so much of noise over the two sons that Singh once said he would put up a signboard outside his office, banning the entry of his family members. But those were words uttered more in exasperation than in earnest. For, as far as Buta Singh is concerned, dad’s the word, too.